We may be a long way from burning books, but we are closing the libraries that so many millions of people rely on. So Periplum’s new large-scale outdoor show, inspired by Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, is timely. It’s also a clever choice, both satisfying an audience’s desire for pyrotechnics and finding a genuine reason to deliver them.
There are some startling images: hundreds of pages flutter through the air like distressed birds falling to Earth; a figure is immolated on a pyre of books like a bibliophilic Joan of Arc. There was an added frisson at the performance I saw, as part of the annual miracle that is the Greenwich and Docklands International festival – because it took place in sight of Bethnal Green library.
This is not in any way an adaptation of Bradbury’s novel, which is set in a world where books and free-thinking are banned. But the show will be enhanced if you know the book, because there is a lack of clarity in the narrative and the spoken sections of the show. The spectacle sometimes lacks density too.
What Periplum do very well is capture a fearful world where aircraft soar overhead, people believe everything the media tell them, and giant mechanical hounds stalk the landscape trying to wipe out dissenters and free thinkers. At its confident best, it feels like a company moving into Teatr Biuro Podróży territory, and with tighter dramaturgy, that could be a good move for large-scale British outdoor theatre.
- At Stockton International Riverside festival on 31 July. Box office: 01642 528130.
